BNP leader freed after racist attack
01 July 1994
Richard Edmonds, the national organiser of the British National Party (BNP) who runs the organisation on a day-to-day basis, was found guilty at Southwark crown court in June of taking part in a brutal attack on a black man in east London. The attack took place outside the Ship public house in Bethnal Green following a BNP paper sale in nearby Brick Lane.
Following the paper sale BNP members went to the pub and were drinking outside when Steven Browne, and his white girlfriend, walked past. The couple were subjected to a torrent of racist abuse before Edmonds initiated the attack by hurling a beer glass at him. This was followed-up by about 20 other BNP members who beat him to the ground with bottles and then kicked and punched him in what judge Christopher Hardy described as "a quite appalling act of savagery." The beating left Browne scarred for life.
Edmonds was sentenced to a 3 month prison sentence for violent disorder but walked free from the court having already served 11 weeks in custody on remand. Two other BNP members who, like Edmonds, are known to have taken part in other racist attacks, were also jailed. Stephen O'Shea was imprisoned for 1 year for kicking and punching Mr Browne as he lay on the ground and Simon Biggs was jailed for four and a half years for smashing a bottle in his face. He raised his arm in a Nazi salute as he was led away.
A few days after Edmonds was released another, even more brutal, racist attack was tried at the Old Bailey. Kenneth Harris was attacked at a petrol station in Dagenham, east London, last October, by three men who objected to his having a white girlfriend. They launched an attack on him in which he was stabbed in the head with a screwdriver before being run over repeatedly with his own car. He suffered a fractured skull and multiple lacerations and can still only walk a short distance.
The attackers denied attempted murder charges and the prosecution accepted their guilty pleas to causing harm with intent. Two of the men, Edward Duggan and Vincent Ribbens (who had racist posters and Nazi memorabilia in his bedroom) were jailed for 3 years; a third man, Laurie Ridley, was jailed for 5 years.
The British Crime Survey estimated that there are about 140,000 racist incidents in Britain during 1992.